Among the gazillion comments on Digby and Defenders of Wildlife the point repeated is that "real" hunters despise this kind of slaughter, that when these images appear in the media they gain more outrage than human killings; count up and compare images of tv/movie shootings of people vs. the family dog/wolf/German Shepherd and you see the taboo.

I think this ad is JUST the kind of thing that could sink Palin-McCain. It's sick-making and she's for it.

Hamburger #104, what I'm curious about is the justification for the $150 wolf limb bounty in a non-cattle (except human) raising area. Obviously, a fun source of income to the sadistic, but how is the outgo justified via "conservative" principles?

Previously, the only reward was a wolf pelt they could sell, usually for somewhere between $200 and $300, Bruce Bartley, Department of Fish and Game spokesman, told the Anchorage Daily News.

The Palin administration is anteing up cash because the number of wolf kills this winter is behind schedule. State biologists wanted 382 to 664 wolves killed by the time the snow that helps with tracking disappears this spring. The predator-control season ends April 30.

As of Tuesday morning, 98 wolves had been killed by aerial gunners, hunters and trappers.

Pilots have complained that fuel prices are too high to fly and there hasn't been enough snow on the ground to track the elusive animals, said Matt Robus, Division of Wildlife Conservation director. There are also fewer wolves to kill now because of kills in past years, he said.

More than 600 wolves have been killed under the program. The state estimates there are between 7,000 and 11,000 wolves in Alaska.

The Board of Game recently urged Palin to let state staff shoot wolves from helicopters.

Shooting from helicopters that hover close to packs would be more deadly and humane than from the airplanes that are currently allowed, board members have said.

Palin has asked Fish and Game officials to charter helicopters only as a last resort.

The governor prefers cash incentives because they are less expensive than renting helicopters, and the income helps families where the wolf killing occurs, Leighow said.

The state also plans to share information with program volunteers on where the wolves have been spotted.

I think the helicopter-wolf slaughter ad would turn millions away from Palin-McCain. Give money to Defenders of Wildlife anyway even if you have doubts.

If shooting Buddy/Fido from an airplane doesn't turn your stomach, then think of the implicit polar bear cubs running alongside mommy bear taking a hit from a copter. Americans do not like that shit. And Palin offers bounties. I have a family full of Repub siblings/hunters with bow and arrows who would be repulsed.

This is what American elections are made of. No one in flyover country can yet see how injecting their cash to corporations will impact them. But shooting Fido from an airplane. That's just not right. Whatthefuck. If you can't save USA you can save wildlife.

Pakistan bomb attack during Ramadan and International Day of Peace, no less!

--

As far as Plush-Hamburger, you really don't know what you're talking about.

Not everyone can afford either plush or hamburger in the northern outback.
They live on meat, lard, flour, tea, sugar and salt. Wolves run the meat
to exhaustion, then kill the yearlings, forcing age cohorts more elderly,
with less fecund animals, as well as picking off the sick and aged meat.

Wall Street’s problems are driving up customer traffic at local wine stores.
This week, New Yorkers have been going home to have a good, stiff drink.

“Vodka and scotch sales are up, there’s no question about that,” said Chris Adams, executive vice president of Sherry-Lehmann Wines & Spirits, on 59th Street. He says that traffic in his store has increased this month—over the counter sales are up 23%, and delivery volume is up about 18%, compared to last year.

But, he added, revenues have remained flat.

“We have more people coming in, and people are buying more wine and liquor, but they’re trading down,” he said.

#99 Alabama
Water in the middle east.
If I remember right, there are huge underground aquifers under the West Bank. There may be some connection between the Israeli need for water and the need to retain the West Bank land for that reason. Do ya think?

"Israel aims to keep the two main Palestinian West Bank aquifers: the lower Jordan River basin in the east, and the eastern mountain aquifer, trapped behind Israel's wall in the west. This will force Palestinians to depend on Israel for water, preserving the status quo, a dramatically unjust division of water resources." A Thirst for West Bank Water

President Dmitry Medvedev has called for Russia to secure its Arctic borders because the region may hold more than a quarter of the world's offshore oil and gas reserves.

"Our first and fundamental task is to turn the Arctic into a resource base for Russia in the 21st century," Medvedev said at a meeting of the National Security Council on Wednesday, Sept. 17. "Using these resources will entirely guarantee Russia's energy security."

Russia is involved in an international race with the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark to lay claim to suspected vast energy and mineral reserves that will open up in the wake of global warming.

"We must finalize and draft a law on setting the southern border of the Arctic region," Medvedev told the gathering. "This is our responsibility to future generations."
...
Medvedev earlier this year signed a law providing for the Kremlin to have the sole say in assigning the rights to developing the Arctic's offshore finds.

Energy giant Gazprom, a large supplier of gas to Europe, followed up Medvedev's statements Wednesday with its own announcement of the creation of a subsidiary company to take charge of exploration of some of the world's most challenging deposits in the Arctic.

Gazprom estimates that Arctic and offshore reserves will count for more than half of the gas it produces by 2020.

Russia also relaunched Soviet-era military patrols of Arctic waters this year.

Russia is involved in an international race with the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark to lay claim to suspected vast energy and mineral reserves that will open up in the wake of global warming.

UNITED NATIONS -- The Bush administration's support for the appointment of a Rwandan general to a top U.N. peacekeeping job in Sudan last year came despite a warning from the State Department human rights bureau that there was "credible evidence" linking the officer to human rights abuses in Rwanda in the 1990s, according to internal U.S. government documents.

The U.S. decision to back Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Karake Karenzi as the deputy force commander of the joint U.N.-African Union mission in the Darfur region of Sudan may have violated a provision of a 1997 U.S. law known as the Leahy Amendment, according to two State Department bureaus that opposed Karenzi's appointment. The law requires the State Department to vet the human rights records of foreign military units receiving U.S. assistance.
...
But the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi E. Frazer, short-circuited the debate, assuring African Union officials in a Sept. 7, 2007, meeting that a U.S. inquiry had found no evidence of Karenzi's role in atrocities and proposing that he receive the job, according to a U.S. cable describing the meeting. Four days later, the United Nations approved Karenzi for the post.

In February, a Spanish judge charged Karenzi and 39 other Rwandan officials with the mass killings of Rwandan civilians and of several Spanish and Canadian missionaries and relief workers. Nevertheless, the United States, Britain and Rwanda have urged U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to renew Karenzi's contract when it expires next month, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.

U.S. and Canadian scientists are preparing their own arguments both to lay claim to their continental boundaries and to prepare their defense against Russia's next submission, which may impinge on their proposals.

The U.S. Geological Survey - which is heading up the U.S. scientific team - earlier this year published its latest resource estimate, predicting the area north of the Arctic Circle has an estimated 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 90 billion barrels of oil.

Mérida, September 19, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- The Venezuelan government expelled two employees of the U.S-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco and Americas Deputy Director Daniel Wilkinson, after the two presented a report that praised Venezuela's 1999 Constitution but harshly criticized the "government's willful disregard for the institutional guarantees and fundamental rights that make democratic participation possible."

In a press release, the Venezuelan Foreign Relations Ministry said Vivanco and Wilkinson "have done violence to the constitution" and "assaulted the institutions" of Venezuela by "meddling illegally in the internal affairs of our country."

The ministry also said the HRW report is linked to the "unacceptable strategy of aggression" of the United States government. The ministry said the expulsion of Vivanco and Wilkinson was in the interest of "national sovereignty" and "the defense of the people against aggressions by international factors."
...
HRW's report, titled "A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela," says the two-day coup against President Hugo Chávez in April 2002 was the "most dramatic setback" to the human rights guarantees of the 1999 Constitution, but that the Chávez administration has since used the coup as a pretext to undercut those rights.

Specifically, the government has engaged in "discrimination on political grounds," "open disregard for the principle of separation of powers," and has "undercut journalists' freedom of expression, workers' freedom of association, and civil society's ability to promote human rights in Venezuela," according to the report, which bases its conclusions on interviews conducted over the past two years.

According to a press release from the U.S.-based Venezuelan Information Office (VIO), the HRW report portrays isolated incidents in Venezuela as though they were common occurrences, and "reads like the talking points of Venezuela's discredited opposition."

The Human Rights Watch report "Venezuela: Rights Suffer Under Chávez," provides an incomplete and biased account of Venezuela's human rights record during the last decade.

It overstates the issue of political discrimination, accusing the Chávez government of targeting opponents, when in fact it has pardoned supporters of the coup and promoted open dialogue. The report is also wrong on the separation of powers and the media. The branches of government provide strong checks and balances, and institutions have improved since Chávez was first elected. No censorship of the media occurs, and the opposition still dominates the airwaves. In terms of civil society, labor organizations and community groups enjoy more support from this administration than ever before.

Venezuela has a strong record on human rights. Many of the important guarantees set out in the 1999 Constitution have indeed been enforced, particularly those relating to the fundamental needs of citizens, such as food, shelter, healthcare, access to education, employment, social security, and the right to participation in cultural life.

Human Rights Watch details none of the impressive progress made in these areas. For example, the UN Development Programme has found that Venezuela has already achieved some of the Millennium Development Goals, and is on track to complete the others by 2015. Notably, the country has seen a 54% drop in the number of households living in extreme poverty since 1998, and its overall poverty has fallen by 34%. Facts such as these provide a much more complete picture of the human rights situation in Venezuela.

well if we're gonna be all conspiratorial about it MCCain has visited NZ several times in the last decade. I dunno whether or not that is because NZ is the usual way for amerikans to get to their base at antarctica, which is the other spot he has 'dropped in on' with only local publicity, or NZ's ownership of the land amerika occupies in Antarctica (divided up in the late 19th century, amerika missed out on antarctica) requires McCain to silver tongue the NZ pols. Maybe thats the reason there has been so much more tory bias this NZ election from the global media conglomorate owned NZ news outlets - some horror story in antactica is afoot.

It would be crazy to think the continent isn't chocka with oil and minerals and of course global warming and the seemingly inevitable big melt of the ice cap mean running the old preserve millions of years of untouched eco-systems is a difficult sell. Since amerika dipped out on the first divy up and only came to the party on the post WW2 'peace and love' euphoria anti-exploitation treaty, getting a foot in the door without NZ co-operation may be tough.
The usual northern suspects Britain and France claimed some of antactica back in the late 19th century.
When the 'borders' were agreed most of the area went to Australia, NZ and South Africa-probably considered to be england's proxies at that time, as well as Chile and Argentina, Norway for getting there first and maybe even Belgium but no amerika.

After ww2 when amerika sent out it bills a treaty was drawn up and ratified in 1959, but amerika's status is very unclear. Claiming mineral rights would be tough for any of the original claimants and doubly so for amerika.
Of course amerika has by far the biggest base in antactica and like britain it has a pretty ordinary record for maintaining the pristine integrity of antarctica.

Why would a selfish prick like John McCain put himself through at least two long and boring and uncomfortable military transport flights (amerika to NZ and NZ to Antarctica) then back again not once, but several times?
Penguins for Barak!!